the Scubapro xTender - an update

I placed a counter on my weblog to see who (and why) visits my weblog and I saw a lot of people visiting my "scubapro xTender-something like a review"; Since it seems people are interested and I gathered some more dives on it (close to fifty actually), I decided to post a little followup on that "something".


A few weeks back the original wrist-bracelet broke, so I had to replace it with a velcro strap. Knowing the difference now, I'm almost sory I didn't do this earlyer, since it's more confortable on the hand, less bothering when I'm sweaty, and easier to manipulate.

It's not that the original was unconfortable, it's just ... this "feels better" on the hald.


The computer is stil on the original battery (and seems to be stil going strong). I took it down to fourty metres (41.8 or something) with no problems (I didn't expect any anyway), and during all this time I got VERY familiar with it.

In low light (depth, poor viz. or night diving), the backlight of the screen is strong enough to illuminate 1/2 metres around you, but you can't really use it like this unless you're desperate ( and you're better off with an UW torch anyway :) ).

The "too fast ascent" alarm (a blinking "SLOW" on the watch screen) seems a bit sensitive to me and once it activates during a dive, it will keep blinking on screen when viewing the dive profile for that dive;

For me it's like a black spot on my dive profile, and for this, I find it a bit annoying.

It's also usually one of my goals during ascents to "make it not blink on this dive". On the dives I succeed, this makes me kind-of happy :).

The titanium ring on the edge of the thing is a life-saver, as it took a few strong hits up to now without complaining; Infact I have a few scratches on it, but considering those scratches would have been on the screen instead of the protection ring, this actually keeps me happy.

Regarding the water temperature sensor ... it seems preety accurate to me, though I've had .5 to 1 degrees differences between my computer and other divers' ones. I don't find this to be an issue though, since the temperature is "accurate enough" to estimate equipment requirements.

Otherwise, I stil am happy with it and I probably will continue to be so.

... and by the way, I stil didn't manage to get the english version of the computer manual but I got on fine without it.